Fast copy of Color32[] array to byte[] array
c#, copy, marshalling, struct, unity-game-engine
Solution
I ended up using this code:
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
private static byte[] Color32ArrayToByteArray(Color32[] colors)
{
if (colors == null || colors.Length == 0)
return null;
int lengthOfColor32 = Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(Color32));
int length = lengthOfColor32 * colors.Length;
byte[] bytes = new byte[length];
GCHandle handle = default(GCHandle);
try
{
handle = GCHandle.Alloc(colors, GCHandleType.Pinned);
IntPtr ptr = handle.AddrOfPinnedObject();
Marshal.Copy(ptr, bytes, 0, length);
}
finally
{
if (handle != default(GCHandle))
handle.Free();
}
return bytes;
}
Which is fast enough for my needs.
Problem
What would be a fast method to copy/convert an `array` of `Color32[]` values to a `byte[]` buffer? `Color32` is a struct from Unity 3D containing `4 bytes, R, G, B and A respectively`. What I'm trying to accomplish is to send the rendered image from unity through a pipe to another application (`Windows Forms`). Currently I'm using this code: ``` private static byte[] Color32ArrayToByteArray(Color32[] colors) { int length = 4 * colors.Length; byte[] bytes = new byte[length]; IntPtr ptr = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(length); Marshal.StructureToPtr(colors, ptr, true); Marshal.Copy(ptr, bytes, 0, length); Marshal.FreeHGlobal(ptr); return bytes; } ``` Thankyou and sorry, I'm new to StackOverflow. Marinescu Alexandru